第75章 Guinevere(4)

And in the darkness heard his armed feet Pause by her;then came silence,then a voice,Monotonous and hollow like a Ghost's Denouncing judgment,but though changed,the King's:

'Liest thou here so low,the child of one I honoured,happy,dead before thy shame?

Well is it that no child is born of thee.

The children born of thee are sword and fire,Red ruin,and the breaking up of laws,The craft of kindred and the Godless hosts Of heathen swarming o'er the Northern Sea;Whom I,while yet Sir Lancelot,my right arm,The mightiest of my knights,abode with me,Have everywhere about this land of Christ In twelve great battles ruining overthrown.

And knowest thou now from whence I come--from him From waging bitter war with him:and he,That did not shun to smite me in worse way,Had yet that grace of courtesy in him left,He spared to lift his hand against the King Who made him knight:but many a knight was slain;And many more,and all his kith and kin Clave to him,and abode in his own land.

And many more when Modred raised revolt,Forgetful of their troth and fealty,clave To Modred,and a remnant stays with me.

And of this remnant will I leave a part,True men who love me still,for whom I live,To guard thee in the wild hour coming on,Lest but a hair of this low head be harmed.

Fear not:thou shalt be guarded till my death.

Howbeit I know,if ancient prophecies Have erred not,that I march to meet my doom.

Thou hast not made my life so sweet to me,That I the King should greatly care to live;For thou hast spoilt the purpose of my life.

Bear with me for the last time while I show,Even for thy sake,the sin which thou hast sinned.

For when the Roman left us,and their law Relaxed its hold upon us,and the ways Were filled with rapine,here and there a deed Of prowess done redressed a random wrong.

But I was first of all the kings who drew The knighthood-errant of this realm and all The realms together under me,their Head,In that fair Order of my Table Round,A glorious company,the flower of men,To serve as model for the mighty world,And be the fair beginning of a time.

I made them lay their hands in mine and swear To reverence the King,as if he were Their conscience,and their conscience as their King,To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,To speak no slander,no,nor listen to it,To honour his own word as if his God's,To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,To love one maiden only,cleave to her,And worship her by years of noble deeds,Until they won her;for indeed I knew Of no more subtle master under heaven Than is the maiden passion for a maid,Not only to keep down the base in man,But teach high thought,and amiable words And courtliness,and the desire of fame,And love of truth,and all that makes a man.

And all this throve before I wedded thee,Believing,"lo mine helpmate,one to feel My purpose and rejoicing in my joy."Then came thy shameful sin with Lancelot;

Then came the sin of Tristram and Isolt;

Then others,following these my mightiest knights,And drawing foul ensample from fair names,Sinned also,till the loathsome opposite Of all my heart had destined did obtain,And all through thee!so that this life of mine I guard as God's high gift from scathe and wrong,Not greatly care to lose;but rather think How sad it were for Arthur,should he live,To sit once more within his lonely hall,And miss the wonted number of my knights,And miss to hear high talk of noble deeds As in the golden days before thy sin.

For which of us,who might be left,could speak Of the pure heart,nor seem to glance at thee?

And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk Thy shadow still would glide from room to room,And I should evermore be vext with thee In hanging robe or vacant ornament,Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair.

For think not,though thou wouldst not love thy lord,Thy lord hast wholly lost his love for thee.

I am not made of so slight elements.

Yet must I leave thee,woman,to thy shame.

I hold that man the worst of public foes Who either for his own or children's sake,To save his blood from scandal,lets the wife Whom he knows false,abide and rule the house:

For being through his cowardice allowed Her station,taken everywhere for pure,She like a new disease,unknown to men,Creeps,no precaution used,among the crowd,Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes,and saps The fealty of our friends,and stirs the pulse With devil's leaps,and poisons half the young.

Worst of the worst were that man he that reigns!

Better the King's waste hearth and aching heart Than thou reseated in thy place of light,The mockery of my people,and their bane.'

He paused,and in the pause she crept an inch Nearer,and laid her hands about his feet.

Far off a solitary trumpet blew.

Then waiting by the doors the warhorse neighed At a friend's voice,and he spake again:

'Yet think not that I come to urge thy crimes,I did not come to curse thee,Guinevere,I,whose vast pity almost makes me die To see thee,laying there thy golden head,My pride in happier summers,at my feet.

The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce law,The doom of treason and the flaming death,(When first I learnt thee hidden here)is past.

The pang--which while I weighed thy heart with one Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee,Made my tears burn--is also past--in part.

And all is past,the sin is sinned,and I,Lo!I forgive thee,as Eternal God Forgives:do thou for thine own soul the rest.

But how to take last leave of all I loved?

O golden hair,with which I used to play Not knowing!O imperial-moulded form,And beauty such as never woman wore,Until it became a kingdom's curse with thee--I cannot touch thy lips,they are not mine,But Lancelot's:nay,they never were the King's.